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It seemed to me that every couple of weeks during 2009 someone would ask, “Hey… did you see that amazing stop motion thing?”

“What thing?”

“That ad… you know”

And my heart would feel a twinge of nostalgia and then sink sadly.

Ever since the epic skeleton fight from Jason and the Argonauts I have loved stop motion. For the uninitiated, here’s a peek…

"Get your bony arses OFF MY PROPERTY"

Stop motion on film has a long and rich history dating from The Humpty Dumpty Circus made in 1898 and is hardly a radically new art form. But in a visual culture saturated by CGI and green screen effects that attempt to simulate reality, stop motion’s rawer aesthetic looked like it had died. But,suddenly, with a series of advertisements ranging from Cameras (mentioned by Duff at this post) to XBox, stop motion became hip all over again. I was merely saddened by the idea that only the advertising industry could afford the cost these days and, outside of Wallace and Grommit, it was now merely used as a gimmick to sell stuff.

That was until I stumbled across this brilliant stop motion film at fark.comtoward the end of 2009.

New Years Resolution: I really should work on being slightly less cynical and jaded this year!